The Trees Are Thinking

The trees are thinking,
their dark green figures do not move,
a fine rain falls beading leaves,
a shroud of mist wraps its white waves 
mysterious and cold around their boles
and all is sombre-toned
as if in mourning for some
dire event that humans 
cannot know.

Lost in mist that wreathes their black and green,
about them twilight gathers its dark skirts
their thoughts hum on unheard, unseen
vibrations undeciphered by the mortals
treading past their roots - mere
goods to us, paper hectares
planned and squared, gridded there, 
tidy and respectable.

We do not have the wit to catch their thought, 
tune-in to quiet sighing words
that crest and float the gloom -
all eyes are fixed on town and home,
on traffic lights, on red and green,
on earning, living, with no time for life between.

Our hands are bound by our own
delineated thought hemmed-in,
all roads and tracks are lined, constrained,
without them is uncertainty, unknown 
use of wits, fingers, eyes -
strength to survive
and in that toil reclaim joy, air, sky,
long lost to tills and paper squares
with which we buy shares 
and sell our souls.

The trees care not ...
their wisdom grows within
ring by slow ring 
trading time with sun, rain, moon -
their friends in fair exchange,
not ours to harm.

Our wars are our own 
and with ourselves to maim.
There are realms of gold 
we have never seen;
lands of diamond and opal
we have never been.

But the trees, the trees ...
are thinking and their roots are evergreen.
All that can be known and seen,
they have always known and seen ...

all life is here
all time and art laid bare
as Orion plants his legs,
swings his great arms overhead,
the three large diamonds
in his broad belt shining,
looks down and grins.

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